


Dowsing

by velvetglove



Category: Smallville
Genre: M/M, T.S. Eliot The Waste Land, Water Imagery, thamiris prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-08-13
Updated: 2003-08-13
Packaged: 2018-10-29 19:00:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10860090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetglove/pseuds/velvetglove
Summary: Originally posted to Live Journal 08/13/03. This story was written the SVFF challenge. My prompts were from Thamiris from T.S. Eliot'sThe Waste LandChloe/Lex."(Come in under the shadow of this red rock)/And I will show you something different..." -- T.S. Eliot, The Waste LandFuturefic. There should be sexual tension, although it doesn't need to be realized, and of course how you choose to interpret "the shadow of this red rock" and what you decide is beneath it is entirely up to you, as is what happens there. I'd like to see Chloe flawed and human, not the love of Lex's life, not someone whom he admires without reservation--a complicated relationship, in other words, not an easy, overly-sweet one.andClark/Lex."Who are those hooded hordes swarming/Over endless plains..." -- T.S. Eliot, The Waste LandFuturefic, but how near or far into the future is up to you. A sense of the guys' past attraction/love must enter into the current dynamic, with the attraction/love perhaps repressed but still present--a melancholy story, then, not a comedic one.





	Dowsing

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to jacynrebekah, meret and sugarrush2003 for fast, last-minute beta. I definitely received a challenge! As I apparently tend to do, I got a little blurry at the edges of the challenge parameters and ended up looking at great general hunks of the poem, rather than just the lines specified. I was completely unfamiliar with the work until I got the challenge, and I rather enjoyed (okay, loved) having a reason to immerse myself in The Waste Land. I honestly could think of a thousand other things that ought to be in this story, but since I decided to junk the one I'd been working on all month (where everyone was running around in the desert and I was having to research seismology) and wrote this today, I have to excuse myself for not getting everything in ;)

At the close of the curtain, Lex let his eyes fall shut and listened to the rising din of the audience taking their leave. Crisp crush of taffeta, a thousand heavy perfumes, a whiff of blood from the cloakroom with its concentration of slaughtered mink. He guesses at that last, but he has spent enough time in cloakrooms to know how it would be pressed in amongst the garment racks just off the lobby of the Metropolis Opera House.

Impatient with himself, he thinks that the problem with opera is rampant sentimentality. Every scenario in every opera seemingly created specifically to fuel the romantic despair of raving depressives. Missed opportunities, mistaken identities, late arrivals and thwarted love, always thwarted love.

The program rattled in his hand when dying, delusional Isolde sang of Tristan, already gone:

 _Do you not see?_  
_How he shines_  
_ever brighter_  
_soaring on high,_  
_stars sparkling around him?_

Fuck. Just...fuck.

"Is everything all right, Mr. Luthor?" He opens his eyes, startled. The manager of the house, a Mr. Bradford, if he remembers correctly, is an anxious penguin.

The seats below are empty, the boxes around him abandoned. Is he really the last guest in the house? "Yes, everything's fine." Lex lets the man help him on with his overcoat. If his eyes are puffy or pink-rimmed, Bradford has enough sense to let it go unremarked.

"It's raining, Mr. Luthor. I could accompany you to your vehicle with an umbrella?"

"No, I'll manage. Thank you Mr.—"

"Bradford. It's Bradford, sir."

He makes the effort to pull his face into a rictus of kind politeness. "Yes, I remember. Again, thank you."

An awning covers the steps and the rain bounces noisily off the tight drum of the arch. The sky growls. The stairs are black and shiny with rain and the red carpet underfoot is slightly soggy. Whatever possessed him to drive himself tonight?

There are lights at the bottom of the stairs, a news crew at the back of an open van between him and the garage where his car is parked. Obviously, they are waiting for him, and there's no getting past them without a confrontation.

He hears, "He has to come this way; his car is still here," and sees a flash of yellow hair. He had thought it might be her.

"Lex!" She's been hanging back beneath an umbrella to keep her hair dry. She steps out, followed by a cameraman. The microphone in his face makes him pull up short. "Lex! Mr. Luthor. May I ask you a few questions?"

"Chloe."

The camera looms over her shoulder, the lens hood too close to his face. She's a little shark, coming in for the kill, and she bites into the words. "Chloe Sullivan, Metro News Channel Seven. Mr. Luthor, is there any truth to the claim that LexCorp has been conducting genetic experiments overseas? Experiments expressly forbidden under U.S. law?"

"Chloe." He's faced sharks before.

She plants her feet and blocks his path. "Mr. Luthor." Her teeth glitter in the bright lights. "Is it true?"

"Turn off the cameras."

"Is it true?"

He's had enough. He'd had enough a long time ago, in fact. "Ms. Sullivan, is it true that you've been meeting with my father on a weekly basis for the past seven years? I have photographs that show—"

She seems to have been taken completely unaware; he congratulates himself on both his discretion and patience. Chloe turns to her surprised crew. "Shut down." She's gone white under her heavy on-camera make-up.

The camera man stands with his mouth hanging open, the camera tilting down at the wet pavement. Chloe shakes her head and waves him off. "Go on, pack up." She looks smaller now, and her shiny teeth are hidden behind trembling lips.

Lex lets his coat fall open and puts his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants, cocks his head to the side, and asks, "Don't you want to talk? I'll answer your question if you'll answer some of mine."

"Not in front of them," she murmurs, stepping in and pushing him back with a hand against the front of his shirt. "Jesus Christ, Lex! Not where they can hear." She brushes past, heels clacking against the wet pavement, and disappears around the corner of the building.

She waits for him in a dark alcove, a delivery entrance, the smell of garbage and piss washing away in the rain. He backs her up against the brick, stands over her with a hand either side of her head. She's bracketed and trapped, her breath coming in panicked gasps. Her eyes are wide and dilated in the low light.

"You're frightened," he says, sounding amused. "You've survived all these years dealing with my father, but you're frightened of me."

"I'm not afraid," she lies. "It's not what you think, Lex. Your father...I understand what he wants."

He leans in, forearm against the brick, speaking right into her ear. "You don't understand anything. You're walking dead, Chloe; you're just waiting for the order to lie down." She jumps and a spike of gel-stiffened hair pokes him in the nose.

"I'm not threatening you," he explains. "It's what he'll do to you."

"He's done nothing to me. He's _helped_  me."

"You've gone this far, but you'll go no further. What good will you be for him if the network sends you to Los Angeles? He doesn't want you in Gotham—he doesn't care about the Batman. There's nothing that interests him in Atlanta or New York. You're an on-camera reporter for a second-tier market—a good gig, but not a fitting end for someone so ambitious that she'd risk the life of her—" and here his voice drips with contempt—" _best friend_."

"What are you talking about?" Her voice quavers. "Do you mean _Clark?_ "

"You're almost as bad a liar as he is."

She closes her eyes for a moment, and when they open, she looks determined. "If I've done anything, it was to protect him. From you."

He shakes his head in disgust and pushes back off the wall, away from her. "You don't really believe that."

"You were _using_ him." She looks defiantly up at him. "You never loved him."

He wants to hit her, hard. No matter how much she hates him, she can't possibly believe that. He shoves his fist deep into his pocket and says, "Did my father tell you that? Dear old dad, my closest confidante? Jesus. You can't think that my father has Clark's best interests at heart."

"I know what Lionel wants. Only information. He'll never hurt Clark so long as there's something more to find out. He could never get close to Clark on his own. I knew that if I gave him the information he wanted, he'd leave the Kents alone."

"And give you a leg up, of course. First teen correspondent for The Daily Planet. First recipient of the LuthorCorp Media Scholarship. Very impressive, Chloe. But you know perfectly well he never stopped investigating the Kents, never left them alone. Did you know that my father has Clark's ship?" A flicker of recognition twists her features before she gets them under control again. "He'd never have managed that if it weren't for you. You've put Clark in danger time and time again. Thus far, I've always managed to intervene, but I'm beginning to fear that I won't always be there in time. You're going to get him killed—"

"No!"

"—unless Pete or his parents do it first. You're all so busy protecting him from me that you've left him open to anyone else _who might actually want to hurt him_."

"He can't be hurt, not like that."

"Yes, he can. You know it, I know it, and so does my father. He's known for years."

"And he hasn't done anything, so what's the problem? I think that proves my point." To her credit, even she appears to find the argument weak.

Lex laughs, a mirthless bark. "I haven't harmed Clark, either. Yet you refuse to trust me." The stubborn defiance in her eyes fills him with anguished rage. "I don't know whether to be disgusted or amused...do you really imagine you can get the best of my father? This is his game, Chloe; it's always been his game, played by his rules. You're a smart girl, but you're not that smart."

"I have the situation under control," she says, not meeting his eyes. The quaver in her voice is gratifying; maybe she'll be more careful. Clearly, Lionel is having fun with her, and maybe, just maybe, she'll continue to avoid being killed long enough for him to convince Clark that he did what he could to prevent her death.

"Seven years, Chloe, and he knows more about you than you know yourself. You belong to him, and you've given him Clark in exchange for what? Your face on the TV, people recognizing you in the grocery store, strangers asking for your autograph in the ladies' room. You sold him to my father for your vanity."

~~~

As she walks away from him, away from her camera crew and the lights, she feels muscles jump convulsively along her spine, the nervous terror of a rabbit about to be caught up by the sweep of a lion's paw. The sweat breaks out in her armpits and runs sour over her ribs. Her bowels twist like a gyre. Lex regards her with uninflected interest, polite and cool, and she backs away from him in spite of her desire to appear calm and collected. The brick wall of the Opera House is rough against the flat spread of her hands. After he berates her, he leaves her there, soaked to the skin and shaking. When she lifts her hands to cover her crying eyes, she finds that she has convulsively clawed them raw against the wall, and there's a crescent of brick dust and blood beneath each nail. Under the circumstances, it's difficult to convince herself that she's not frightened.

~~~

Any other night, he would have been surprised that someone would knock on the terrace door, but he's expecting this. He hasn't spoken with Clark in over a year, but it's easy to predict that Chloe would contact him, frantic for damage control. There's a blur of red and blue, distorted by the glass and the rain. When he opens the door, Clark isn't smiling, but he doesn't look angry, either.

"Come in."

"Lex. It's been awhile."

He can't call him Superman; he never has. "Come on, Clark." He steps back and tilts his head, inviting. "It's cold and wet out there, and I'm not invulnerable." Clark cracks a smile, tiny but positive, and brushes past.

He takes up so much of the empty space. The air bends to accommodate him and Lex can feel the shape of Clark's movements even with his back turned, pouring Clark a drink. Root beer, with ice.

He looks beautiful, even in the costume. The shy, playful boy he fell in love with, his Clark, is hiding in plain sight behind Superman's S. The cape makes sibilant sounds as it slides over his shoulders. Clark reaches for the glass and says, "Thanks." He takes a sip. "Chloe called me, Lex. She was incoherent, basically. What's this about?"

When he tells Clark that Chloe has been funneling information to Lionel for all these years, Clark just shrugs.

~~~

During storm season, he lit fires against the castle drafts and drank scotch after scotch as he read in his chair. Once, finally, Clark came to him wet from the rain, hair plastered to his head and his jacket and jeans soaked through. He shivered, or pretended to, so Lex encouraged him to undress, gave him a thick robe, and handed him a towel. He turned to leave the room, but Clark put a hand on his arm and said, "Wait," then bent and curled against him. The water from his hair soaked through Lex's shirt and marked his skin.

Water pooled around Clark's discarded clothing, running from his boots and the heaped jacket that steamed in proximity to the fire in the hearth. Lex let Clark take him down to the floor on his back. Clark was still shivering, but it was no longer an act.

"If we do this, everything changes," Lex warned. He had his hands tight in Clark's hair and his shirt was soaked through; if he had any say in the matter, Clark wouldn't be able to speak the words that would reverse this process, and he'd never break free in time to say it was all a mistake.

He wasn't going anywhere; he was clinging to Lex and begging. "Change things, then," Clark insisted. "Make everything different."

Something had frightened him, some new feeling or startling thought, and once again he had run to Lex, as he always had before, but this time he wasn't coming to hide or pretend.

All the way, then, or not at all. Lex said, "I love you, you know. You know that; you _need_ to know that." But, still, Clark did not leave, or push him away. Clark moaned against his neck, almost sobbing, and clutched his wet shirt in tight fists.

"Lex," he said. "Lex. Jesus. Say it again."

"I love you. You're all that matters to me." He said it plainly, without passion; he'd used up the passion at the first horror of admitting the feelings to himself. "I don't think you understand what we're setting in motion."

"You're trying to scare me, aren't you?" Clark licked his neck, slid a hand inside his shirt.

"I'm obsessed with you. You know it, Clark, and now you're encouraging me."

"It goes both ways, Lex. So why don't you kiss me?"

His mouth was there, available, and Lex wasn't doing anything else, so he kissed Clark. He licked the rain from his lips and closed his eyes against the drops that fell from Clark's hair, warm as blood. It was like dying, drowning, jolted awake on the rock with Clark looming over him.

~~~

He knew that Clark had told his mother what was happening between them when he went by the farm for fresh flowers. He'd had hyacinths just three days before, and they'd smelled incredible, been so beautiful pulped in streaks of blue and pale red against Clark's tawny skin. Today there were tulips, pale yellow with sooty stamens. Martha handed them over with tight lips, averted eyes, and no offer of a cookie or piece of pie.

He'd said, "Is something wrong, Mrs. Kent?" although he could already feel it, and knew exactly what was on her mind.

For once, she didn't start out insisting that he call her Martha. "Clark," she said. "Clark told me...something." She looked up, and her eyes were steely. "It upset me." She turned her back. "But I'll get over it. We'll all get past this. He'll get this out of his system, Lex; you know he will."

He'd always imagined that she'd liked him. No, he hadn't been imagining it; she _had_  liked him. But she didn't like him fucking her baby, and now all bets were off. She'd just told him she wished him _past_. She probably thought this had been entirely his idea.

Of course, in the end, she was right. He's past. He is history.

But history, as he likes to remind himself, is almost always repeated.

~~~

After relaying the information about Chloe and his father, he expects Clark to show something. He is prepared for surprise, shock, anger; instead, there is nothing. Clark smiles at him, sadly, and reaches to touch his cheek. Lex shuts his teeth on harsh words and turns his face to the curve of Clark's palm. He smells the same as Lex remembers, Martha Kent's brand of soap and something that's just Clark, dark and sweet like ripe figs.

He might be imagining it when Clark says, "I've missed you," because he wants to hear it so badly.

He hadn't known that he believed that they'd be together again. Now, in an instant, the wasted years mean nothing. He could ask why, but Clark must have his reasons, just as Lex does.

Clark's mouth is seeking his, lips against his throat, his jaw, whispering his name. He lets himself be led. He lets Clark lay him down on cool sheets. He is willing, so willing, and Clark helps him undress. They stretch out long, naked. Clark's hand closes over his hip and draws him closer; Clark says, "Please."

Wet lips and silken tongue, his fingers in Clark's mouth, and his hand around Clark's cock. Clark moans and moves in his grip, licks the pads of his fingers, and begs his name. Maybe it should be different this time, but it isn't; it's familiar, like always. Lex takes a nipple between his teeth and pulls; Clark cries out and his hips lift off the bed. Lex's hand releases Clark's shaft and comes to rest on the flat of his belly, and Clark whimpers, knowing what will happen next. Lex kisses his way down the length of golden skin and tongues the leaking head of Clark's cock, which jumps like a fish. A single kiss, and his lips part over the head. Clark arches into his throat, already coming, and the hands on his head stroke gently, almost reverently.

The best part is when he's entering Clark's body and Clark clutches his arm, his eyes wide and frightened, like there's something important he's forgotten and only now remembered. Lex says, "Shhh...it's okay," and Clark strangles on a whimper and pulls him down for a kiss.

Afterward, lying with his head on Clark's heaving chest, he wishes, fervently, for continuation. If all things were perfect, this would be the beginning. But nothing is perfect, certainly not his life, nor Clark's. And history repeats itself.

~~~

In the dark, Lex picks the conversation up where they'd left off. "I think you've known, Clark. I think you knew what she'd done from the very beginning."

"She was just a kid, and she was hurt. I lied to her. I think at first she just thought she was getting back at me. She couldn't have known it would go on so long."

"You lied to _me_ , too." His skin draws tight under a slick of drying sweat.

"Lex..."

"Then again, you've always had a hard time forgiving me my sins."

"The lies I told you were of a different kind."

"You have a higher standard for me. You always have."

"It's true. I hold you to a higher standard."

Lex snorts dismissively and rolls to his back, throws a forearm across his eyes against what little light there is. "So you admit it. Jesus, Clark. How can I help but fail?"

"You can't. You'll always fail." Clark sat up and let the sheet pool in his lap. "I'm sorry."

"So what is this? What are we doing?"

Clark looks down at his hands, resting inert on the sheet. "I don't know. Nothing. A mistake."

"We can't start over? Why, because we can't do it all over?"

Clark sighs. "Something like that."

Lex is glad the room is dark. "I think you'd better go."

Nothing good ever came of a man lying with an immortal.

~~~

The boat responded  
Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar  
The sea was calm, your heart would have responded  
Gaily, when invited, beating obedient  
To controlling hands

from _The Waste Land_ by T.S. Eliot


End file.
